Writing & Books
Happy Birthday, Legacies!
When Losses Become Legacies turns two, and we're celebrating with reader reviews and a giveaway — because your words help others discover the book.
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Praying Hands
Ten years after losing my brother Jim, I share the essay I wrote about him — a story woven through Durer's Praying Hands, our mother's legacy, and the mysterious power of prayer in the face of unbearable loss.
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Reflections on Grief: Philip Yancey and Nicholas Wolterstorff
Philip Yancey and Nicholas Wolterstorff have grappled with grief in ways that illuminate the path for the rest of us — reminding us that God doesn't explain our suffering so much as share it.
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Win a Book, Read It, and Review It!
Book reviews are manna for authors and readers alike. This final giveaway invites you to win a copy of Legacies, read it, and share what you think.
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Man's Search for Logos
Viktor Frankl taught that meaning is the primary force driving human life. In a culture drowning in division and despair, the search for logos — for meaning rooted in something eternal — has never mattered more.
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Who's That Guy? Enter to Win a Book!
Can you name the man in the picture and his connection to When Losses Become Legacies? This week's anniversary giveaway puts your knowledge to the test.
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A Giveaway to Honor Mom
In one sentence, capture the woman who shaped you. This Mother's Day giveaway invites readers to honor their moms — whether here or on the other side of time.
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When Losses Become Legacies Turns One
To celebrate one year of When Losses Become Legacies, my co-author and I are hosting three weeks of book giveaways centered on honoring moms, art, and the power of reader reviews.
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From the Ground Up: Remembering 9/11
On the morning of September 11, I was a Washingtonian living ten minutes from the Pentagon. The crystalline blue sky that day became illustrative of humanity's starkest contrasts.
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One Cool Dad
A year after my dad's passing, I discovered old Army photos of a well-dressed dandy I barely recognized — and came to see the cool guy he was before parenthood shaped him into the alpha-male who built tank engines and made chicken soup.
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What Does Uncomplicated Grief Feel Like?
After losing my mom to cancer and my brother to suicide, my dad's death surprised me with something unfamiliar: uncomplicated grief — in many ways, sweet.
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A Full Life Well-Lived
My dad's heart failed last month. In crafting his obituary for our twice-blended family, I honored the full, complex life of a Greek immigrant's son who served his country, raised his children, and never lost his love of donuts.
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Pregnancy and Infant Loss: Grieving Well
Losing a baby is a tragedy that demands to be addressed. Grief is a lifelong process, but we have an amazing capacity for healing — to get stronger, rebuild, and help others along the way.
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Who They Were
She was 46. He was 47. They both left the floor before the music stopped — but I dance on, inspired by my mother's resilience and my brother's strong character.
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Retroactive Grief
Watching friends send their children to college stirs a grief I didn't expect — mourning not just my mother, but the tears she never got to cry for me.
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On Being a Mom Without a Mom
Motherless mothering is its own wilderness. Without my mom's roadmap, I've had to define motherhood for myself — and teach my children about a grandmother they'll never know.
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Staying Healthy After Losing Someone to Suicide
Sorrow isn't the enemy of joy — it's joy's fraternal twin. After my brother's suicide, I'm learning how to grieve well and live fully.
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Suicide and Its Unrelenting Stigma
Stigma chases those who've attempted suicide, those who grieve them, and even the professionals who treat them. Changing this starts with raising our voices.
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“You Are, I Am”
A vivid dream of a lion, a psalm about protection, and a song called 'You Are, I Am' — God was speaking, even when I thought he wasn't listening.
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Grieving at the Holidays
The holidays after a suicide are a bitter cocktail of grief and expectation. Acting as if nothing happened doesn't help — but showing up does.
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The Upside of Early Loss
Losing my mom as a teenager gave me coping skills I never expected to need again — until my brother took his life.
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My Brother's Keeper
My brother was my protector, my surrogate mom, my best friend. In his dying words, he entrusted me with the story of his broken heart.
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Finding God in the Depths
Losing my brother to suicide tested my faith in ways I never imagined, but God is drawing glory from the mire — even when I can't see how.
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Forgiveness After a Suicide: What Does it Mean?
Forgiveness after a suicide isn't forgetting — it's releasing the hurt to God, who can build something lovely from the ashes.
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Identity Theft
My brother lost himself in a marriage that defined him, and the lies of worthlessness overwhelmed a man who never stopped extending grace.
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Not Enough: When Guilt Follows a Suicide
The guilt that stalks after a loved one's suicide is relentless — but in the space between sadness and hope, I'm learning to let light return.
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Sorrow, Strangely Sweet
Postpartum depression, mother loss, my brother's suicide — life's most tragic stories aren't without beauty. Somehow, hardship makes joy sweeter, and redemption lurks in the mire.
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Why Suicide Isn't a Selfish Act
Calling suicide selfish is ignorant and hurtful. My brother was in extreme pain, and he believed his children would suffer less without him. That is not cowardice — it is a desperate, human response to unbearable agony.
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Gifts My Brother Gave Me
Since Jim died, I've been unwrapping 39 years of memories like gifts without a shelf life. Losing my mom was an unusual gift too — the space she left was filled by the siblings I came to know and love more deeply.
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When a Mom Dies Young
Hearing the story of a young mother dying from breast cancer stirred my deepest fear: that my motherless history could repeat itself, and my babies would navigate this world without me.
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Rarefied Air
Climbing Pikes Peak taught me something about growing up motherless: it's harder to breathe in rarefied air, but the thin atmosphere makes it easier to hear God's voice.
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My Mother's Faith
A childhood autograph book revealed my mother's unwavering faith — a faith forged through abuse, abandonment, and loss that she passed to me like a torch before she died.
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The Bright One
I finally learned the gender of the baby I lost between my two children — a girl. Naming her Lena Karen gave her a wholeness that grief alone could never provide.
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A Time for Everything
On my son's third birthday, I returned to the Chicago neighborhood where he was born and reflected on how motherhood dismantled my old life — and slowly built a new one.
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A Mother Lost, a Mother Born
Losing my mother at 15 left a grief I carried into every milestone. Becoming a mother myself reopened the wound — and, unexpectedly, began to heal it.
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